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Welcome. If this is your first visit, please read the Introduction before you continue. For recent additions to the links under the Journal Articles and Book Reviews sections on top left corner of this site, please check the Update Log. This post shall be considered dateless and will always stay at the top.

May 09, 2013

Spinoza rejects fundamental tenets of received morality, including the notions of Providence and free will. Yet he retains rich theories of good and evil, virtue, perfection, and freedom. Building interconnected readings of Spinoza's accounts of imagination, error, and desire, Michael LeBuffe defends a comprehensive interpretation of Spinoza's enlightened vision of human excellence. Spinoza holds that what is fundamental to human morality is the fact that we find things to be good or evil, not what we take those designations to mean. When we come to understand the conditions under which we act-that is, when we come to understand the sorts of beings that we are and the ways in which we interact with things in the world-then we can recast traditional moral notions in ways that help us to attain more of what we find to be valuable.

For Spinoza, we find value in greater activity. Two hazards impede the search for value. First, we need to know and acquire the means to be good. In this respect, Spinoza's theory is a great deal like Hobbes's: we strive to be active, and in order to do so we need food, security, health, and other necessary components of a decent life. There is another hazard, however, that is more subtle. On Spinoza's theory of the passions, we can misjudge our own natures and fail to understand the sorts of beings that we really are. So we can misjudge what is good and might even seek ends that are evil. Spinoza's account of human nature is thus much deeper and darker than Hobbes's: we are not well known to ourselves, and the self-knowledge that is the foundation of virtue and freedom is elusive and fragile.

September 08, 2012

PART I: MONISM IN CONTEMPORARY METAPHYSICS Monism: The Priority of the Whole; J.SchafferExistence Monism Trumps Priority Monism; T.Horgan & M.PotrčWhy the World has Parts: Reply to Horgan and Potrč; J.SchafferAgainst Monism; E.J.LoweThere Is More Than One Thing; P.GoffThe World as We Know It; R.HealeyOn the Common Sense Argument for Monism; D.O'Conaill & T.E.TahkoSubstances Stressed; J.HeilPART II: MONISM IN SPINOZASpinoza on Composition and Priority; G.GuigonWhy Spinoza Is Not an Eleatic Monist (Or Why Diversity Exists); Y.T.MelamedSpinoza's Monism and the Reality Of The Finite; S.NadlerSpinoza's Monism? What Monism?; M.LaerkeSpinoza's Demonstration of Monism: A New Line of Defense; M.KulstadExplanatory Completeness and Spinoza's Monism; R.N.Goldstein

March 21, 2012

This work examines the unique way in which Benedict de Spinoza (1632–77) combines two significant philosophical principles: that real existence requires causal power and that geometrical objects display exceptionally clearly how things have properties in virtue of their essences. Valtteri Viljanen argues that underlying Spinoza's psychology and ethics is a compelling metaphysical theory according to which each and every genuine thing is an entity of power endowed with an internal structure akin to that of geometrical objects. This allows Spinoza to offer a theory of existence and of action – human and non-human alike – as dynamic striving that takes place with the same kind of necessity and intelligibility that pertain to geometry. Viljanen's fresh and original study will interest a wide range of readers in Spinoza studies and early modern philosophy more generally.

The chapter on Spinoza is of particular interest. The article on Spinoza in Bayle's Dictionary is longest of all, and it is clear that Spinoza held a unique fascination for him, even to the point of serving as an alter ego. Even so, Bayle is unrelentingly critical of Spinoza's metaphysics, especially of what he called the "abominable hypothesis" that there is but one substance, which is God. Bayle's actual arguments against this pantheistic substance monism have not been taken very seriously by commentators, however, and a great virtue of Ryan's book is to demonstrate that "Bayle's reading of Book I of the Ethics shows a good deal more subtlety than has been commonly allowed" (p.136).

Ryan distinguishes five objections in Bayle's treatment of Spinoza: (1) the argument from compositeness of extension: substance monism is incompatible with substance having extension as an attribute, which consists of real parts, which are beings per se and as such substances themselves; (2) the argument from incompatible properties that the single substance would have; (3) the argument from mutability that follows from the separability of the parts of extension; (4) the argument from the identity of attributes based on the real identity of attributes with substance; (5) the argument from divine goodness that God as the only subject of predication would be the author of evil, would struggle against himself, etc.

A two-year project funded by the AHRC and hosted at the University of Dundee

October 2008 - September 2010

The aim of the Spinoza Research Network is to bring together researchers from different disciplines who make use of the ideas and texts of Baruch Spinoza. During the two-year project we will be holding two conferences, and developing this website as a hub for researchers, students, and interested readers.

March 03, 2009

Libertas philosophandi. Spinoza als gids voor een vrije wereld, centring on the life of Spinoza and the reception of his work in the seventeenth century. More than half of the books in the exhibition, and certainly all of Spinoza’s own works, were printed in Amsterdam. The exhibition will also feature a selection of (engraved) portraits of Spinoza.

The exhibition focusses on the works of Spinoza, those of his friends and foes, partly from the library’s own holdings, although the exhibition also gratefully relies on loans from institutions and private collectors in the Netherlands and abroad. Books printed in Amsterdam will be an important feature in the exhibition: Amsterdam was rightfully regarded as a haven where works could be printed that were prohibited elsewhere. The title of the exhibition, Libertas philosophandi, the freedom to philosophize, expresses one of Spinoza’s profoundest convictions. To him the freedom of thought was boundless, although individual dignity should not be compromised. Spinoza’s radical ideas were vehemently opposed by the theologians of his days. His plea was one for freedom of thought and philosophy (also with regard to religion and its relationship to politics) which could contribute to true democracy, according to him the optimal form of government. Spinoza’s philosophy is still relevant today.